Jordan Vandergriff finished just a few feet short of a storybook weekend at the NHRA Brainerd Nationals, but the John Force Racing Cornwell Tools Chevrolet SS Funny Car driver still earned his fourth final-round appearance of the season and is second in the 2026 Mission Foods NHRA Drag Racing Series point standings heading into the regular season finale Cornwell Quality Tools U.S. Nationals in two weeks.<\/p>\n
Alexis DeJoria lost a close second-round matchup against teammate Vandergriff in round two while competition for Jack Beckman and Josh Hart ended in the day\u2019s opening round.<\/p>\n
The Cornwell Tools Chevrolet SS Funny Car lined up for the final round against Matt Hagan who had lane choice. Vandergriff grabbed a slight edge off the starting line (.061 to .064) and looked headed toward his third win of the season when the Cornwell Tools Chevy made a move to the centerline. Wary of costing his team championship points if he crossed the centerline, he backed off the throttle which allowed Hagan to take the win with a run of 3.946 seconds at 320.13 mph over Vandergriff\u2019s 4.038 seconds at 266.27 mph.<\/p>\n
\u201cHeading into the final, we knew he had a little bit of a performance advantage on us,\u201d said Vandergriff. \u201cWe left hard and were running strong, but the Cornwell Quality Tools Chevy made a move to the left like we dropped a cylinder. I started tracking toward the center and figured I better be safe than sorry. I didn\u2019t want to lose points to a penalty so I pedaled it but it just wasn\u2019t enough for Matt\u2019s 94.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vandergriff\u2019s other final round appearances this season were at Valdosta (win), Epping (runner-up) and Sonoma (win). He also finished runner-up at Dallas in 2019 when he competed in 11 Top Fuel events.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I\u2019ve done a good job so far this year, but I know there are moments I haven\u2019t been through yet. I think this final round was one of them and I\u2019ll be a better driver for it. All in all, it was a great weekend for this Cornwell Quality Tools team. We were the No. 1 Qualifier, made it to the final round and are second in the points, giving us a lot of momentum heading into the Cornwell Quality Tools U.S. Nationals. The top four in the Funny Car point standings are all within one round so it will be anybody\u2019s ball game. We\u2019re just fortunate to be one of the cars in the mix so it\u2019s going to be fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vandergriff had a bye in the first round, defeated DeJoria in their second-round matchup, and J.R. Todd in the semifinals (3.977 seconds to 5.800 seconds).<\/p>\n
DeJoria had lane choice in her second-round matchup against Vandergriff. Both cars made identical 3.956-second runs, but it was only the nearly three-hundredths-of-a-second reaction time difference (.058 to .087) that provided Vandergriff the victory. The Bandero Caf\u00e9 Chevy made a solid 3.927-second pass at 328.14 mph in round one to defeat No. 9 qualifier Dave Richard\u2019s 5.358 seconds at 135.63 mph to set up the second-round matchup with Vandergriff.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Bandero Caf\u00e9 Chevy SS team is at its best right now,\u201d said DeJoria. \u201cAll four of our qualifying runs were in the 3.90s and then two more on race day. This is still a new team to John Force Racing so we\u2019re going to test here Monday with the other teams. We\u2019re solid in the points for the Countdown to the Championship and I\u2019ll have all my family supporting us at Indy. We\u2019ll take all the good luck we can get.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beckman got the jump on No. 11 qualifier Chad Green off the starting line (.068 to .086) but smoked the tires a couple hundred feet out. Unbeknownst to Beckman, Green had struck the tires right off the line, so Beckman pedaled the throttle of the PEAK Chevy. In doing so, however, he crossed the centerline for an automatic disqualification. It was his second centerline infraction of the season, costing the team 20 championship points and a drop from second to fifth in the regular season point standings.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt went out there and puffed the tires but, as a driver, you have three things to do: leave on time; keep it in the groove; and, if something happens, react appropriately,\u201d said Beckman. \u201cI just got way behind the car. Chad had problems, too, but I couldn\u2019t see him so I didn\u2019t know if he was getting ready to pass me. But you have to get the car squared up before you get back on the throttle. When I pedaled it the second time, I had the wheel all the way left which is one of the worst things you can do as a driver. This is a gut check, because I let the PEAK SQUAD down. We had a car good enough to win but we didn\u2019t have a driver good enough to win so we\u2019ll stay and test tomorrow to work on some things in the clutch for the Countdown. We\u2019ll lick our wounds, go to Indy in a couple weeks and, hopefully, win that one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hart and the Speedmaster Top Fuel dragster lined up against No. 7 qualifier Tony Stewart in round one. Hart cut a solid .078 light and ran 3.789 seconds at 330.47 mph, but Stewart had a .047 reaction time and a run of 3.726 seconds at 334.32 mph.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe realize we have been behind the pace,\u201d said Hart. \u201cThis John Force Racing Speedmaster team is a championship caliber program and we won\u2019t stop until the results prove it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 14th of 20 races on the 2026 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series is the Sept. 2-7 Cornwell Quality Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis (Ind.) Raceway Park.<\/p>\n
The post Vandergriff Jumps to Second in Funny Car Points With NHRA Brainerd Nationals Runner-Up<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jordan Vandergriff finished just a few feet short of a storybook weekend at the NHRA Brainerd Nationals, but the John Force Racing Cornwell Tools Chevrolet SS Funny Car driver still earned his fourth final-round appearance of the season and is second in the 2026 Mission Foods NHRA Drag Racing Series point standings heading into the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104635\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}